


We Can Never Go Back

by AdessoFaSilenzio



Category: Eerie Crests (Webcomic)
Genre: Animal Attack, Animal Death, Blood, Hallucinations, M/M, Mild Gore, Reunions, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 06:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdessoFaSilenzio/pseuds/AdessoFaSilenzio
Summary: A storm is brewing in Blue Crests, and an animal guides Dallas home.





	We Can Never Go Back

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY BELL! You're so creative and wonderful, I really hope you have a good day! <3
> 
> Written to this song, and so much better if you listen as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIwyqsqHsic

_And I don’t think that that’s a selfish want; I really don’t. I’m not saying that I have that capacity because it’s hard to develop that capacity on your own._

_When you’re being stopped at every turn._

 

The stag was in his window.

Dallas had spent days, weeks, almost _two months now_ feeling like he was being watched every second of the day. The eyes followed him wherever he went… crows calling from the trees, ruffling feathers and opening wings to reveal more of the damn things… the stag itself appearing once in awhile to snort and stomp at the ground as though it demanded attention he didn’t have to give. Dr. Harper had told him years ago that he saw things that weren’t there. He needed to find Malek, not worry about his hallucinations.

He could hear the sound of antlers tapping against the pane before a noise filled his ears that left him paralyzed in his dining chair. He felt every vertebra in his spine freeze as his skin broke into goosebumps. The buck was vying for his attention, and it sounded like it came from _inside_ the house - right over his shoulder where he sat at the table surrounded by piles of paper. There were missing posters and old newspaper clippings of UFO sightings, a crumpled map of Blue Crests with Poppy’s pendulum still laid upon the woods. She had tried dowsing earlier, but when the crystal had pointed her where they’d already searched _countless_ times… she gave up. She left the chain coiled upon the map where it had landed and pushed the picture she had been using - the one of her on Malek’s shoulders, the three of them smiling and laughing and covered in sidewalk chalk from where they’d stopped drawing on the pavement and started drawing on one another instead - into his chest. She said she just needed a break, and that Dallas should get some sleep. Then she’d gone home, just like that. Dallas had been irritated by the abandonment to say the least, but he understood how taxing it had been on her. Poppy thought Malek was dead. No wonder she couldn’t locate him.

The stag repeated it’s cry, a scream so terror-filled it jerked Dallas out of his chair and to his feet to look. He couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there if it called like this - his reaction was too visceral to hide. And the animal (it wasn’t an animal, he couldn’t let himself think it was real or it _would be_ ) was injured. He could see it in all three - five? Nine? - eyes. Only two of them were black and physical looking, but he could tell in _all_ of them… It was dying, and it slammed antlers into the window again desperately to try to get Dallas closer. The supernatural essence of it that was hidden by the facade of tangible creature seemed to flicker in and out with the wind, always reappearing a second after fading. Over and over it hit its head against the glass. It was unrelenting.

Dallas hadn’t realized he had moved away from the dining table until he was slipping his shoes on, Malek’s jacket thrown haphazardly over his back. The stag was bleeding from a point on it’s shoulder, the wound seeping a silverish liquid that looked like it held the contents of the universe and mixed with dark red blood. As it fell to the ground, it vanished completely, no trace of ever having existed in the first place.

Without thinking about it, Dallas grabbed his mom’s keys. Josie was long asleep, and his own room closest to the driveway, so there was no worry about waking either her or Hazel. Dallas hadn’t gotten his license yet, but that was hardly important. He knew what the stag was trying to tell him, now, and the consequences of driving illegally could be damned. He could hear the explanation in the tapping of antlers and a soul-wrenching call. Malek was in the woods. This was his last chance to find him before the buck disappeared _forever._ If he didn’t go now he would never be able to go again.

Dallas was going to find Malek tonight.

The drive to the entrance of the long-abandoned Blue Hills State Forest (it had been shut down due to government budget cuts) could only be described as frantic and dangerous. A storm was threatening to loose in the sky; the wind lashed at everything it touched, whipping Dallas in the face with his unkempt hair and in the stomach with the zipper of Malek’s jacket. As soon as Dallas had torn out of the house the deer was there, jumping at him and screeching as it stomped at the ground. He’d recoiled from the movement before realizing he wasn’t being being attacked. The animal waited impatiently for him to start the car and get into the road before running faster than any creature had right to and guiding him exactly where he knew he needed to go. Poppy’s amazonite hadn’t been inaccurate, they just hadn’t been listening well enough.

A bolt of lightning crashed somewhere in the forest as Dallas slammed his door shut, the dark sky bursting into blinding light for a split second before the roar of thunder deafened him as well. He felt the ground shake with the combined force of the two. The rain was just starting to fall, droplets wetting his face and the windshield. He could see them in the foggy beams of the headlights he had left on, heavy and round and ominous. The stag was just beyond the light, standing at the edge of the trees and snorting indignantly. It moved in a circle before seeming to flicker out of existence completely, but it wasn’t fast enough for Dallas to miss the way it limped. Every minute that passed he came closer and closer to losing Malek forever. He needed to move.

He was thankful his mom had left a flashlight in the car after so many hours of Dallas and Poppy combing the woods for their lost friend. It felt heavy in his hand, but the weight was comforting. It was going to lead him out there - it was going to lead Malek home. He followed the stag without a second glance back.

The woods were pitch black other than the yellow beam of the flashlight and the shimmering white of the buck - the air itself seemed to vibrate around the animal - and Dallas could see in his peripherals hundreds of pairs of white eyes blinking to life and watching him as he was led through the trees. The cawing of the crows raised from sporadic to cacophonous the deeper he trekked, and he could feel the hair on his arms standing at attention. He forced himself to swallow the fear; he put all his focus into following the deer yards ahead of him and searching for his friend.

Friend didn’t seem to be the correct word to describe Malek anymore, if he was honest with himself, which he usually wasn’t. When had he shifted in his mind from platonic to something altogether different? It was somewhere between the party when Ellen had given him an almond-flour brownie and the night Malek almost divulged some deep-seated secret before he went missing. Dallas’ mind had been plagued with how warm Malek’s fingers had been as they blanketed over his own around the epi-pen. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve been able to go through with it had Malek not been there. And what exactly had he been trying to say that night, anyway? _”Even though I’ve felt this way for the longest time, I’ve only come to terms with it recently. I was going to tell you, I really, really…”_ Really what? It had sounded like a confession, but that had just been Dallas’ awful mind working against him. Malek was everything he could never have; he was smart, handsome, popular, and genuine. He was friends with everyone - even his exes - and had this insane way of commanding a room and still being casual about it. What did Dallas have that could possibly interest someone like Malek - mental illness and abandonment issues?

The stag cried out suddenly, startling Dallas into paying attention to his surroundings. The rain was coming down harder now, seeping into his jacket and leaving him cold to the bone. Or maybe that was just the sounds of the forest making his nerve endings fire. Dallas felt tingly and numb out here in the dark with nothing but rain hitting leaves and crows mocking him. The stag continued its cry as well, turning to look back at Dallas and tripping over its wound. When it crashed to the ground, Dallas didn’t hesitate to rush over. The creature’s breathing was labored, and its white aura blinked in and out, leaving normal deer in its wake before finally flickering back to life. He ran his fingers gently over the animal’s shoulder, feeling how hot and inflamed the wound was. His fingers came back silver and red, and when he rubbed his thumb against the liquid it evaporated with a wisp of smoke. The buck was struggling to get back on it’s feet, and Dallas did his best to help without touching the injury further.

Once it was back up, it called out again, And Dallas understood what it was saying. It was trying to call attention to itself and not Dallas, covering sound so he could call for the lost boy of Blue Crests. Dallas kept close to the creature this time as it moved again, using the deer’s braying to shout “Malek?” He knew he had to be here somewhere, lost in the storm that was just beginning to crack.

The crows followed them for what felt like hours. The stag continued to sound and Dallas had never stopped calling for Malek. He knew they were still heading in the right direction, because his animal guide had not once changed direction, no matter how treacherous the path became. It limped and lumbered over fallen trees, steep hills both up and down… It hadn’t fallen again.

Without warning, the storm died.

The silence was almost suffocating, and it alarmed Dallas enough that he settled a hand to the flank of the buck and looked around. All of the eyes were still there, some blinking, some not, _all_ watching the pair closely. There was no wind blowing his hair into his eyes now, no cawing, not even a drop of rain. Dallas swallowed thickly, waiting for something to give in this abrupt stalemate between the creatures that walked and the creatures that watched. They had passed a threshold, he could tell. They had just overstepped a boundary.

As quickly as the silence had come, it ended in an uproar. A singular hoot of an owl broke the fragile facade of peace, and all of the crows took flight at once. The number of eyes tripled just like that, and the stag reared back on its hind legs, effectively throwing Dallas to the ground and knocking the flashlight out of his hand, where it flickered and went dead. He would have cowered if he could, but the shock of what took place in front of him had the boy watching in wide-eyed horror.

The stag didn’t even have its front legs back on the ground before the crows were tearing into it, raining down like bullets in a war zone and ripping at the buck’s fur and flesh. It fought back valiantly, smacking handfuls of the creatures out of the air with its antlers and crying out now not in protection but in desperate agony. _Run_ , it said, and Dallas felt the order in his soul. He scrambled to his feet just as the stag’s legs buckled, and the last he saw of it were the crows hovering around, folding their wings in and shooting downward. They hit the creature’s wound in rapid succession and burrowed their way under its skin from the hole there. He supposed he probably screamed, but he couldn’t hear it over the shriek the stag itself made.

He was running then, panic taking over every sense and propelling him forward. He could still hear the crows - they sounded like they were calling his name now - but he didn’t spare a glance back to see them. He had to keep running; he had to find Malek. Malek would know what to do, just like he always did. Dallas tripped over a log and went sprawling, managing to catch himself just in time to roll down a hill he hadn’t even seen. The forest was so dark now that his light was gone, and he might have strained an ankle had he not fallen first. Either way he would have gone for the ride down the dirt and leaf covered trail.

When he finally came to a halt, he was covered in mud and small cuts. His jeans had ripped just above the knee, and Malek’s jacket was filthy. There was a stick in his hair, lodged right into a knot, but Dallas didn’t even know it was there. He was too distracted by the sight before him. He had landed in a clearing of sorts, tall grass and gnarled tree stumps all around, but there were no crows - no full trees at all, actually. And right in the middle - at the core of the glade - there he was.

“Malek.”

Dallas made a noise he never would have guessed a human could make after breathing the name of his most beloved friend. It was almost a sob, choked and despairing, but also almost a hysterical burst of laughter? He was _there_ , _right there_ , alive and blinking back like he couldn’t believe Dallas existed. Lightning, bright and violent, crashed through the sky, lighting the field blue and heralding an angry clap of thunder. Again Dallas felt the earth quaking beneath him.

He wasn’t sure how he got back on his feet, but as he did Malek also pushed himself up. They ran at each other like they held no weight, and when they collided it knocked the wind out of Dallas completely. His chest exploded in pain and he sputtered, gasping for breath instinctively but not really caring if he caught it. He had Malek in his arms. They were together, and nothing in this forest of hell would be able to touch them. His legs gave out and he slid down to his knees, bringing Malek with him in their tight embrace.

They clung to each other for a short eternity, Dallas weeping into Malek’s neck and shoulder, before Mal finally shifted and pulled back. He wasted no time in holding Dallas’ dirt-smudged cheeks in his hands and just taking his best friend in, green eyes searching every inch of his face. It spurred Dallas himself into motion, and he brought his own hands up to card through Malek’s matted hair, a giggle of sheer relief bubbling forth and cutting through his tears. Malek was alive - this wasn’t a hallucination. He could feel him, could see him grinning back in his own disbelief, could hear him panting and could smell that scent that had faded from the jacket over a month ago. The only sense he didn’t have was taste. “Where were you?” He asked, voice cracking with emotion, not wanting to look away for fear that Malek would suddenly disappear. His chest felt like it would burst, heart leaping from his body. Malek was finally back with him. It didn’t matter that they were both soaking wet and shivering, or that they still had to make it _out_ of the forest. They were there now. It was all that could ever matter.

“I’ve been right here.” Malek breathed, closer than he was a moment before and looking intense. Dallas felt his heart stop behind his ribcage. “I couldn’t leave. There’s this… hierarchy of the forest, I was with the crows-”

He couldn’t finish his sentence, because Dallas finally lost control of his actions. Tightening his fingers to fists in Malek’s hair, he crushed their lips together, needing to have that one last confirmation of sense to believe this was all real. And there it was - taste. Coppery from where his tooth had caught Malek’s dry lip; sweet like teenage love. Malek _was_ there. He’d kissed his best friend and he couldn’t even care that it crossed a line because it was _real._ Dallas loved Malek in so many different ways and he understood that now. He’d had months worth of time to agonize over it and come to terms with it, and now he had kissed him. He’d _found_ him, and Dallas could probably die happy after having done that.

Malek didn’t pull away like Dallas figured he would. He paused for a second, sure, but he didn’t recoil or push Dallas back. What he did instead was curl his own fingers against his best friends cheeks and tilt his head. He kissed _back_ , urgently and with feeling, and Dallas felt the puzzle pieces slide into place like they’d never been anywhere else. Malek _had_ been confessing the night he went missing. All of those _“kiss me, it doesn’t have to mean anything”_ had _meant something._ Every lingering glance and private smile just for him… they’d all been something he was too thick to see. All of those pregnant silences as they cleaned each other’s wounds - Dallas from instigating fights and Malek from the wrath of Nadia’s boyfriend - and that night Malek had asked if he could be Dallas’ New Years kiss. Malek didn’t have the ability within him to be cruel, and Dallas knew that. Why hadn’t he noticed this sooner?

As lungs short on air are bound to do, his began aching, and Dallas regretfully had to disconnect their mouths. He stared in amazement at Malek as though seeing him for the first time, but he couldn’t put words together in his mind. He couldn’t get out what he needed to. Malek thankfully picked up where he couldn’t, and sighed a soft “I love you. I need you to know before anything else happens. I love you, Dallas. I have for a while.”

He could barely hear the words over the storm that raged around them, but he _did_. He heard them and reciprocated the feeling tenfold. Dallas was just opening his mouth to say so when he heard the soft bray of the stag.

Both he and Malek turned to look at the creature, which rocked as it staggered toward them, and Malek shot off to catch it when it fell. It didn’t seem to weigh hundreds of pounds like an actual buck would have, but it was obviously heavy judging by how Malek stumbled to the ground with it. Dallas rushed over as well, half in shock that Malek could see it in the first place, half in shock that it was still _alive_ . The crows had burrowed into it so deeply… He could see the buck’s flesh crawling; it bled from so many spots it almost seemed to be dyed that silverish red. Malek had carefully laid the thing’s head on his lap and was soothing it’s fur back as it huffed and watched them both. It would perish any minute now, and Dallas hit his knees again to press his own hand to the animal’s neck. It was overheated and there was no saving it, but he wanted to cry at the loss. He wanted to _try_ . Malek’s voice came to him in a lull, drowning out the howl of the wind and rain like it didn’t even exist. It took Dallas a moment to realize Malek wasn’t even speaking to him, but to the creature in his lap. “Thank you.” he whispered, making perfect eye contact with the stag and holding it. “You helped me so much - you kept me _alive_. Thank you so much for bringing him back to me. It’s okay now.”

Dallas didn’t get a chance to say anything before the stag made one last weak noise and promptly went limp. Its eyes dulled, the white ones blinking before disappearing altogether. This time, they didn’t come back. The entire great body of the buck seemed to turn to ash before them, picked up by the wind and scattered across the glade. They sat in stony silence afterward, Malek looking at his hands where they had soothed the creature off to sleep, and Dallas staring at Malek like he held all conceivable knowledge. He ached to soothe his friend, but didn’t know how. Malek was far away in that moment, all joy of being reunited with Dallas clouded by sorrow.

He was content to let his friend mourn quietly, but finally Malek looked up and spoke again. “No one can ever know about this, Dally.” He cautioned, voice heavy with grief but also with relief. “The woods are closed off for a reason. We have to keep this between us.” His eyes spoke volumes, and Dallas knew there was no arguing. They would say he was just hopelessly lost in the woods, surviving off berries and other foraged things. That was fine; it was believable. Dallas nodded wordlessly and swallowed down his anxiety. Malek moved to take both of Dallas’ hands within his own and press them to his lips, never looking away. Dallas had yet to respond to his admittance. There had been such a terrible whirlwind of emotion tonight and all he wanted to do was go to sleep. They needed to get back to the car, they needed to call the cops… there was so much left to do before they could rest. “Kiss me again.” Dallas requested dumbly instead of getting to his feet, needing to feel Malek against him again. It couldn’t possibly be real, right? None of this could really be happening. Except Malek nodded and brushed lips against his again, this time slower, almost questioning, and Dallas knew it _was._

They stayed like this for a long while, Dallas’ hands trapped in Malek’s and kissing tenderly, before they parted once more. They stared at each other in awe for even longer, relearning each line and quirk of the other boy’s face. Dallas remembered just how attractive that dimple was when Malek’s lips twitched into a small smile, then broke out into another wide grin. “I can’t believe you’re here.” he admit freely, moving to toss his arms around Dallas again and holding him close. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Dallas couldn’t say that he felt the same, really, considering he never once gave up hope that Malek was alive and safe, but he nodded into Mal’s neck anyway. Finally, the words came to him. “I’m here now.” he hummed against his more-than-best-friend’s skin before holding him at arms length by the shoulders. He smiled, bright if not a little watery, and said “let’s go home, Malek.”


End file.
